grapefruit

The other weekend I was going to a little cucumber-themed dinner party with some friends. Yep, cucumber-themed. Pretty specific, I know, but I love dinner parties so of course I was down. Here’s a secret, though: I really don’t like cucumbers very much. They’re one of the few foods I generally shy away from (other foods that receive that treatment from yours truly? Celery, eggplant, and licorice). I wasn’t going to be a theme-wrecker, though, so I decided to make a salad including, but not highlighting, the cukes. I also was in the mood to be healthy (if you don’t count the approximately 6 glasses of white wine I downed that night, oops).

This salad was really easy to throw together and it was a hit amongst my friends. Quinoa has always been one of my favorite grains, and it used to be considered kind of exotic, but these days it’s pretty easy to find. I combined that with fresh herbs and ruby red grapefruit (which, unlike cucumber, is one of my favorite flavors). The result? Light, fresh, sweet, sour, a bit spicy, and waaaaay too easy to eat.

Grapefruit-Cucumber Quinoa Salad

They’re baaaaaaack. We were going to wait for summer to re-launch our Endless Poptails series, but guess what? Poptail season starts when we say it does. Because while we don’t need to an excuse to squeeze a little booze into anything we can, we thought we’d give you an excuse to do so, too. Besides, there’s always fruit in a Poptail — so thank us later for giving you another way to get you daily fruit serving.

For those who are new to the series — we try to keep it simple here, so you don’t have to go spend some crazy money for jut a few ounces. At the same time. if we do use something crazy we’ll give you a variation, so you can decide to scale up or down.

Kickstarting the series is a classic Greyhound (vodka-grapefruit cocktail) mixed here with strawberries, for a sweet-and-tart kick on a stick. Also — now that we’ve got you started we’re taking orders. Let us know in the comments what kind of cocktail you want to see mixed into a Poptail.

Grapefruit and Strawberry Greyhound Poptail

Any drink that combines the exotic (shiso leaf), the extravagant (St. Germain) and the just plain silly (Squirt!) is an A-OK drink as far as we’re concerned.

This one comes from the just-opened Jasper’s Corner Tap and Kitchen in San Francisco. If you don’t have a Japanese grocer around the corner, we’re pretty sure it would work with a couple basil leaves instead of the shiso. Pretty sure the Squirt is essential though.

It’s a billion and one degrees outside. Does that call for a frosty beer? Or a cold glass of juice? Maybe a shot of tequila? How about all three? Red Star Tavern in Portland, Oregon is now serving The Gringo, a beer-based cocktail that will make you forget all about the heat.

Jujube

But then I looked to my left and saw jujubes. The vendor had a sign proclaiming unattainable health benefits (cancer prevention, Zen-filled life). I bought a half pound. Frankly, though, jujubes may grant me 109 years on earth, but they still taste like blah. Total blah. At first I thought they were dried chilies but then I thought, hey, a sickly sweet candy is named after the dried fruit so it must be sweet. ERRRR. <buzzer sounds> It tastes like absolutely nothing.

Lime

What a radical notion. Citrus fruit is not only in white cartons marked with styles of “some pulp,” but apparently grow on trees. In California.

Dragon Fruit

Total alien fruit. Was this the punk rock cousin of an artichoke with its round shape and spiky leaves? No. It’s a beautiful fuchsia-fleshed fruit. The color, however, is more exciting than the taste.

Almond

There are some edibles out there that I have zero concept of how they grow. Nuts are one of them. Fresh almonds from the farmers market are particularly nutty and do have more flavor than their encased-in-bulk-bins selves.